Hello to all present and future cat lovers and not only them! If anybody is interested in the story of my life including some feline strands, this is it. If you manage to get to the end, then I congratulate patience or envy time and I feel sorry for you to have nothing to do!
My passion in cats started as early as in my childhood. Each holiday parents used to send me to my grandma in the village near Gniezno (oh dear, why can’t I get rid of the kids in the same way ?)I was a good kid, I didn’t play up and I had to be ran outside.(Grandma: -Go at the sun, child, you are so pale…!) So for the whole two months I was mostly sitting at home or on the grass behind the house if they managed to run me outside and reading books, or I was sitting in the dark barn nursing kittens if they were present at that time. In the end of my stay it was coming to this, that kittens were climbing up my trouser-legs just to hide under my sweatshirt and feel the warmth of my body. They preferred me than their feline mummy and I was so proud of it! Doesn’t matters fleas and other bugs! It was worth it! Unfortunately, there was a big pain when I had to come back home…
My parents never wanted to agree for a dog or a cat and maybe they were right, because there weren’t proper conditions to look after it on the 9th floor of a block of flats .I was only left to console myself with fish, which my omniscient dad was killing off after putting into action some, known only to him, strange ideas of decorating the tank. There were also hamsters, which one by one were dying tragically in the hands of inexperienced family and friends when there was a need to find somebody to look after them during holidays. At one time there were even a stinking and expressly making a mess guinea pig and a budgie that used to wake me and my sister up at 5 o’clock in the morning with the voice of this, whom you wanted to hear the least during a nice dream, that is of my strict father…
In the end I raised my own family and as soon as I bought a flat, I quickly started to look for a cat. The first feline inhabitant of our home was blue Persian female Viki, that later got equipped with something by nature and turned out to be a male…Viki, because it remained so, captivated our hearts with his love, blandishments and intelligence. I wanted to provide him with a company. I chose a black Persian female, which besides was a tortie with a very small amount of red. I called her Polenta. So Viki and Pola were living with us, growing together with children for nearly 9 years .
However, the time came when I had to take a quick decision concerning my move to UK. There was no time to conduct long procedures connected with the transport and move of animals. Willy-nilly and with the protest of children I managed to find new owners for my favourites. Then, ironically it turned out that not all the things went as planned and at the last moment I came back to Poland. Unfortunately, I hadn’t fought before of leaving any contact to the people I sold the cats to, so there wasn’t any chance to get them back. During 2 years of functioning without cats I got rheumatism again and I got through 2 oppressive arthrites which I never had before. Finally I reached the conclusion that cat is NECESSARY at my home, I’m just depended on these animals…and not only me. (Me:-Do you love me? My daughter:-No, unless you buy me a cat…) And we started searching in the Internet. Because during cat shows I always wanted to be on another side of the cages envying cat breeders their wonderful pampered hairy creatures , this time I decided to set a professional cattery. At the beginning it supposed to be Sacred Birman Cat for which the area of Stettin is needy, but in the end I took up Siberian Cats and it hasn’t changed so far. For my first pedigree cats I went near Lodz where in 2 different catteries I bought beautiful Neva Masquarade female Ohana Zefirowy Powiew* PL named Coffee and black spotted classic Siberian female Carmen , named Whisky. The second one which was my dearest cat, embodiment of pure love in a catty skin, passed away after a long and agonizing illness at the age of 1 year and 2 months. I experienced this loss very hard. I started to look for another cat to fulfill this emptiness. Since my childhood I always liked black cats , so I my attention was attracted by a black kitten with white from the cattery Perla Gor from Szczyrk. I was observing both her and her sister’s growth, blue with white mackerel tabby. I couldn’t choose for a long time and finally both of them arrived to Stettin…Oh well..never enough…
So black Enja got the name Peppa (as a midget she looked quite like a cartoon character), because my struggle to call her noble name Milady was encapsulated by kids with a comment :- Mummy, shucks, such a fright you want to name Milady?...I managed to embody my cogency in case of blue Elena that got the name Silver. And this, by no means ,is not the end of my feline addiction .I love wild colours, so I’m still looking for my black spotted catkin with the big heart , whose devotion to me would be though a substitute for my dearest Whisky. I also hope that I won’t never be forced to reduce our catty-human family, at best to enlarge our common living area…
Marlena Kępińska
P.S. At the moment I would like to thank Jola Kurowska from the cattery Nowa Era*PL, very much, who took me under her wing, helped in many matters and shared her priceless experience and knowledge, without whom fledgling breeder would make many unnecessary mistakes.
1-st place in the competition for the best decorated cage (again ! )
